Some Snowflake observations

[LukFox]

I suppose it is typical behavior, but being able to witness it was cool! Again I'm in Hawaii (Maui), and have been since the 13th. I pretty much just look for eels these days, having gone once a year the more visible fish stopped being interesting for the most part since they're everywhere.

So today I was stalking a snowflake, about 2-2.5 feet. It was just foraging around, very calmly. I tried to follow a smaller snowflake the other day and it just got scared away when I got close. This guy was very tolerant of me, and he would stick his face into all these holes just narrowly missing the shrimps and crabs he was after. I saw shrimp shoot out to another rock several times, was very cool but also disappointing for the eel.

The snowflake then came to a larger cave, paused as usual and got back in a striking position, and dived in. This is where things got better because it looked like a fight was going on under these rocks. Suddenly another snowflake shoots out and the original one follows it, biting at its tail. It is chasing the new eel very closely mouth agape trying to bite the new eel as best it could. It chased it away maybe 15-20 feet away where the new eel took refuge in a different rock. After this the original snowflake resumed its hunt for crustaceans and I was lucky enough to see it catch a shrimp. It had to body block several Thalassoma wrasses to get it, but in the end the eel was happy and retired to a cave.

The new eel was a little bit smaller than the original, maybe a couple inches shorter and 30% thinner. I've never seen so much aggression between wild eels, so it was very cool to witness.

While on the subject of snowflakes, I saw a MONSTER snowflake my first day here. Biggest snowflake I've ever seen. There were two in this one cave, and the smaller one was bothered enough by my presence that it left and was about 2.5 feet long. The monster's head was massive compared to the smaller one, maybe 3x the size? And at least 3x the girth of the smaller one. I wish so badly I had an underwater camera for that.

I thought this was all pretty cool, and that some others might find it interesting as well.

 

[DanEnglish]

Sounds great! Thanks for sharing! I usually rent an underwater camera...always worth it!

 

[AlexS95]

I'm jealous! xD

 

[LukFox]

Sounds great! Thanks for sharing! I usually rent an underwater camera...always worth it!

I was going to but they are charging $30/day now!! That's crazy when I may only see 2-3 eels a day.

 

[Mr.Tan]

very cool! i've only ever witnessed 1 eel in my years of scuba and it was when i was about to jump in. My foot was leaving the boat and all of a sudden this big eel (no idea what kind) went swimming by under neath...thing looked massive, thank god i didn't keep going or i would have jumped right on top of it like riding a horse haha

 

[Recty]

Pretty cool. Which part of Maui are you diving around? I've dove up in the Lahaina area and down in Kihei, I personally prefer the Kihei diving better, the water is just calmer normally it seems and therefore cleaner.

I started looking for eels, scorps and octopus on my trips out. I've seen three octopus in the last two years, some very tiny angler type stonefish things (not sure on the ID at all) and lots of eels. I see tons of the dark brown with white mouth eels down in Kihei, almost every mass of coral seems to have them. It's funny, once you see one, it's real easy to find others.

 

[LukFox]

Pretty cool. Which part of Maui are you diving around? I've dove up in the Lahaina area and down in Kihei, I personally prefer the Kihei diving better, the water is just calmer normally it seems and therefore cleaner.

I started looking for eels, scorps and octopus on my trips out. I've seen three octopus in the last two years, some very tiny angler type stonefish things (not sure on the ID at all) and lots of eels. I see tons of the dark brown with white mouth eels down in Kihei, almost every mass of coral seems to have them. It's funny, once you see one, it's real easy to find others.

I've done Kihei but I mostly stick to the bay in front of Napili Point, Slaughterhouse, and Honolua Bay. Napili pretty much never disappoints.

I have never seen any scorps, anglers, or stones but I've tried to look a couple times! It surprises me I never have. Where did you see those at? And yeah with eels once you know what to look for they are easy, but still fun to spot the different kinds. Snowflakes aren't normally that exciting.


Mr. Tan, you should have jumped haha!

 

[Recty]

I saw a stonefish of some sort, reddish brown, and an octopus last year at Black Rock.

The octopus was actually harder to spot than the stonefish. The fish was sitting on the sand right by the reef wall and looked a little obvious, the octopus there was really hard to see and I actually kept losing him. I had to snorkel down to about 25 feet to see him and he kept moving a little bit so I had to try to refind him every time with only about 15-20 seconds of air left in me.

I got pretty good at holding my breath this last trip, on the surface out of the water I could hold it for almost exactly two minutes, but once I was snorkeling and exerting myself I could normally only do about a minute, but I was still able to get down deep and look around for a while.

My buddy got certified while I was there and he was at 65 feet on his BC, my friend and I were both able to snorkel down and touch him then rocket back to the surface.